Jeez...comparing those two pics, iTunes 11 looks like a convoluted mess compared to iTunes 10. Good job Apple.

Ummm... how? iTunes 11 looks more traditional "iTunes-y" in those pictures. The vertical column browser was introduced in iTunes 10. While that screen cap of 11 looks like every other iTunes, minus the sidebar.

The column browser on the top is incredibly annoying. This is my main gripe with iTunes 11. At least give the option to have it on the left side. What's the point keeping it on top if you can only see a few rows and you have to keep scrolling??

FWIW, I've always had the Column Browser at the top, and I use 4 columns, Genres, Composers, Artists, and Albums. My priorities have always been to avoid truncating text in the columns as much as possible and not to have a horizontal scrollbar in the song list, while viewing good-sized columns for Name, Artist, Album by Artist/Year, Genre, and Comments (other columns I include like Track #, Year, and Bit Rate are pretty much fixed size). Putting the columns on the left is at odds with my priorities, and it's basically impossible to consistently eliminate vertical scrolling even when you put the columns on the left.

Q: Is there a master "Home" key shortcut, to reset all the columns to their "All" items?

For me this is a really big deal. The removal of the option to align the column browser to the left has completely ruined iTunes for me. I need to revert back to 10.7. Can't understand why they got rid of this option, it makes no sense at all.

My initial impression of iTunes 11 was very positive, but that was before I discovered some of the omissions, especially this one. While I certainly understand why the top-oriented "column" browser might make sense to some, it doesn't fit my usage pattern at all. I suspect that would be true of most people who used the column browser on large screens (e.g., the iMac).

I assume the missing features (this, the album artwork, proper album sorting in list view, etc.) are coming back, and that this was simply a rushed, unfinished release (albeit one with much promise in the long run, assuming the features return). If so, Apple should have said something to warn its users who rely heavily on features that previously existed in iTunes.

Ugh... Hate it when Apple takes out useful features just because they're not popular. Like taking out Spaces in Lion. I loved that feature! I guess that's the price of streamlining... Let's see if we can bring it back with some strong feedback.

I have 1,000 hours of Grateful Dead shows in my iTunes -- I literally can't not use the column browser. It would be nice not to have to use the crummy older version of it that's the only one available to me now.

Has anyone else had problems with getting column browser working on the device section? It seems to be completely disabled!

I've got loads of songs on my iphone all of which were very easy to manage with the column browser on previous version. You can use the search to find songs on device which isn't too bad but you can't highlight multiple tracks by dragging and highlighting like before! You have to hold option and select them individually, massive pain!!!

Has anyone else had problems with getting column browser working on the device section? It seems to be completely disabled!

I've got loads of songs on my iphone all of which were very easy to manage with the column browser on previous version. You can use the search to find songs on device which isn't too bad but you can't highlight multiple tracks by dragging and highlighting like before! You have to hold option and select them individually, massive pain!!!

I don't know anything about that usage style, but I have a smart playlist "Off" containing songs that aren't on my Touch, and a regular playlist "On" which contains songs that are. I sync "On" to my Touch. I also have additional playlists based on "Off" like "Off - Recently Added - 1 Week" (plus 2 and 4 weeks), "Off - Lossless" (and Lossy), etc, which help me find music that isn't on my Touch. Managing my Touch is then just a matter of dealing with these playlists, mainly copying things from "Off" to "On" and deleting stuff from "On". I don't ever need to look at the Touch's list of songs in iTunes, so your question wouldn't come up for me.

Hope you can use this... If not, I'd appreciate learning what viewing the device's songs in iTunes brings to the table.